Thursday, May 21, 2015

I felt last night's event went fairly smoothly, all things considered. Even though we went about 15 minutes longer than scheduled, I wasn't able to address all of the questions in detail, but the chat server worked, as did both of the recordings. Transcripts will be sent out to everyone who signed up as soon as they are completed.

If you're interested in signing up on an annual basis for a 20 percent discount, you can do so now, otherwise you can just sign up on a monthly basis as your schedule and interests permit for $25 per event.

The next event is a free one and will feature an interview with Martin van Creveld, the Israeli military historian, on Sunday 31 May at 3 PM Eastern time. Members will have priority seating; I don't know yet if there will be 100 or 500 seats available.

If you attended and want to share your opinion about how it went, for good or ill, feel free to do so. Three panelists seemed to work pretty well, but in the future I we'll definitely want to nail down the three primary subjects, one per panelist, ahead of time.

I thought it went very well, especially for the first one. Having a few more predetermined topics would probably be beneficial but I appreciated being able to ask questions on the fly. Looking forward to the next session.

1. It started off slow (for me), but got more and more interesting as the discussion went along.

2. Clearly, you need to tell your guest panelists what you expect to have them talk about so that they can prepare in advance. It would also be easier for VD if his guests "anchored" parts of the session so that he did not have to carry the whole program.

3. Does VD refer to his wife as Spacebunny in casual conversation, or is that only for the internet?

4. I did not clearly ask this question: We've (you've) had great push back against the SJW's in gamergate (gaming) and the Hugos (writing SF). What other areas beside games and SF books might be ripe for this kind of pushback? What other groups are brave enough and secure enough to fight back?

5. Looking forward to van Creveld in this format. That should be good.

I thought it went pretty well for the first try and all the panelists had good input. All the topics covered were interesting. I agree that having topics determined before the event would be an excellent benefit. It really would have been nice to have some idea of the topics for the attendees so that we could do some preliminary reading in order to be up to speed when the event begins.

Personally, I would be very interested in exploring pattern recognition.

I thought it was fantastic. The range of topics was great and unexpected. It was what I hoped it would be.

It was mentioned that one of the goals was for the mingling of intelligent people to spur thought and ideas, would it be preferred if folks like myself, who are at least 2-3 IQ levels below most of the participants, leave the spots open for people with more ability to help achieve that goal?

Another improvement would be if those being questioned had their mikes unmuted and were able to ask the questions themselves as well as a follow-up or two instead of me reading their questions from the screen. What I think I'll do is have people with audio - be it webcam or headset - end their typed question with a (A). Then I can simply call on them and let them speak for themselves.

I thought it was fantastic. The range of topics was great and unexpected. It was what I hoped it would be.

Good.

would it be preferred if folks like myself, who are at least 2-3 IQ levels below most of the participants, leave the spots open for people with more ability to help achieve that goal?

No. I think anyone who is genuinely interested, open-minded, and willing to think should be welcome.

Between scheduling conflicts and an unwillingness to take a seat away from someone who can contribute to the conversations at hand, will there be a transcripts/recording only version, or would an interested person only get those if they were a pariicipant?

(If the answer is on the CH page, I apologize. I can't get to it on the corporate network I'm using.)

Between scheduling conflicts and an unwillingness to take a seat away from someone who can contribute to the conversations at hand, will there be a transcripts/recording only version, or would an interested person only get those if they were a pariicipant?

Anyone who registers gets a transcript, whether they participate or not. No recordings. Transcripts from free events can be purchased by anyone.

This. My own question I should have clarified more and cited an example but I didn't want you to have to read off an entire paragraph and the point still not be abundantly clear. Working it with the individual being called on would solve this issue.

I enjoyed it quite a it and thought it went fairly smooth as well... I was a little freaked out the first time Box leaned up to read the Q's, as I thought he was going to climb out of screen. It's true, stickwick should have been on video... When she started talking about dark matter and its biblical support, I was tempted to submit the question "so, what are you wearing?"

@Nate, if you get a chance get that info to me about the Austin gig Vox mentioned in reference to my question about our own VoxCon lol.

From a panelists perspective…Chat server? Did I miss those instructions somewhere? That might have been nice to see. Was that what Markku was filtering questions through?

It was hard to judge the level of interest in the subject. If we were all together in one room I’d be able to see eyes drifting, people shuffling feet to let me know it was time to shut up and move on. As it was last night I didn’t get a lot of feedback from the participants. Would I have gotten that feedback from the chat server?

Letting people ask their own questions would be great. Easier for follow up questions and clarifications – and going off topic on interesting subjects.

I had some prep time for the subject, which was nice, but prep time for the participants would be nice too.

For future panelists:It was confusing at first but there are two different chat boxes that apply to panelists. One allows the panelists to chat amongst themselves which is pretty self-explanatory and one was only for questions.

The questions dialog is moderated - by Markku last night - and only shows questions that are directed at you; so I couldn’t see Vox’s or Stickwick’s questions, only ones sent to me. I didn’t notice until the end but in that questions chat window there was a place to type an answer, and a button for send privately (must be to just the asker) and another button that I think was either for send to all or just to moderator – I can’t remember which. I was trying not to screw things up so I didn’t mess with it, but that may be helpful in the future for questions on the side.

Ah, right, I only sent the instructions to the email list from castaliahouse.com and you weren't a paying member. Hold on, I'll see if I can find your email address and I'll send you the instructions. It's a restricted chat, only to Brainstormers. The entire history of the chat is still there to see.

The panelists aren't EXPECTED to keep track of the chat per se; it's for the audience to be able to talk to each other. Stickwick was there, though. But the only thing a panelist is expected to do is to look at the questions assigned to him. And yes, I was doing the assigning.

I did pay through Castalia for the session, but I didn't get the server e-mail for some reason. I dug back through emails and it's not there. I've got other emails from @castalia but not that one for whatever reason.

Nate: it would've gone better if we had stickwick on video too. Lets face it... She's easier to look at than you are.

Thank you, Nate. But count your blessings that you couldn't see me. As everyone who listened in could tell, I was pretty sick; I probably looked about as good as I sounded. I also do not have nearly as cool a backdrop for video as Vox, with that library and ornate chair. And, for those of us who've never actually seen Vox before, seeing him that way had the effect of humanizing him. Because, let's face it, most of us are picturing Vox blogging from something more like this.

Anyway, I thought the session went well. I very much enjoyed not only being a panelist, but listening to Vox and Tallawampus hold forth on some interesting topics.

Tallawampus's professional opinion clearly played a clear role on the first topic.

I thought that what stickwick had to say was good, but more just from 'very intelligent person commenting'. It would have been nice to have tailored a topic to her areas of expertise, because as it was it felt like a missed opportunity for me as a lay listener.

I would have preferred something along:Topic A, primarily Vox & Panelist A, with some general insights or additional commentary from Panelist B when necessary, and then 'flipped' for B. Ending as we did on a more general topic of interest was perfect as-was.

So four stars from me. Well worth doing and I've already bought my pass, but a more strategic use of panelist's areas of expertise would have been an improvement in my book.

As a member of the audience, I thought everything went well. It was good enough that I want to attend future sessions. I will sign up on a monthly basis depending on the topic to be discussed and whether I am able to attend.

does it make sense to have the subjects somewhat related? For instance, the medical subject discussed and the genetics of race; Astrophysics, creation and end times, the SJW war and 4GW.

The panelists might be able to vibe off each other a little more. Also sometimes it's easier to see links between related fields, at least for the sub 145s. Though counter to that some of the bigger breakthroughs probably come from recognizing patterns from widely disparate fields.

Couldn't actually make the brainstorm because y'all chose Wednesday nights, which I absolutely can't do... but my wife and I were listening to a podcast Vox was on about RP a few weeks ago. We both commented that if his critics had to listen to his blog posts in his actual voice instead of the evil, maniacal voice they conjure up in their own heads, some of the frothing rage would go away.

The chatroom's "Always open general chat" will remain permanently active, unless you folks make it too demanding for me to moderate. General rules: Don't say anything criminal, like how you should blow up federal buildings, and don't pile on people if it seems like they don't want to be piled on. Normal, mutual Ilk roughhousing is fine.

Id truthfully like to participate in these but personal reasons right now make impossible. Not to thread Jack but dad terminal in ICU, and he's not a believer, heading home which is 2000 miles away and simply don't have time or funds to do so. Will they be continuing, and are the seats locked and limited?

Patrick, please email books@castaliahouse.com from the same email you ordered the membership from, and I'll email you the info. In the future I'll put it in the receipt, but the chat was a last minute idea. Didn't have much time to think it all through.

I enjoyed it, especially the first topic. From my perspective, the value in these would be exactly that sort of non-standard information (i.e. the info you're not going to get from the standard credentialled gatekeeper), especially delivered by someone who is not simply a "journalist" reporting on a subject but someone who for personal and important reasons has made an effort to understand the topic.